


бонус (Bonus)

by gardnerhill



Category: Mой нежно любимый детектив | My Dearly Beloved Detective (1986), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Gen, POV Female Character, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 10:47:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11400954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: Freedom can reside in a simple change of clothes.





	бонус (Bonus)

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2017 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #4, **To the Makeup Table!** Focus on Holmes and/or Watson in disguise – for a case, or for any other reason.

The first time Jane Watson had dressed as a man it had been to help Shirley Holmes, similarly-dressed, track some fellows without arousing suspicion – two respectably-dressed ladies by themselves in that street at that time of night would have attracted unwanted attention, and downright frightening attention by too many men. She’d thought she’d looked ridiculous, especially the false moustache.

At Shirley’s coaching, Jane had learned how to disguise herself in masculinity. She practised changing her tone to a masculine tenor, strode in dirty boots instead of picking her steps to keep small neat ladies’ shoes clean; she learned to keep her head up and brazenly looking around instead of down and forward as was ladylike, to look directly into a man’s face while talking instead of dropping her head after 2 seconds, to guffaw at her loudest tenor rather than in a demure titter when something amused her.

Both had resumed male costume (as aristocrats) when they’d infiltrated a gentlemen’s club to question the staff, and again (as sailor-lads) to look for a dock-prostitute.

And in all the subterfuge, Jane made a discovery.

It was … odd … to walk along a street without men calling out at her, or inveigling upon her time and progress (ostensibly to show politeness, but in reality demanding her attention upon them no matter what she was thinking about). It was a relief to be not jolted out of her thoughts by being ordered to smile, to give a friendly look or word by other passers-by, nearly every minute that her errand took. It was … liberating … to really look at her surroundings, to take big steps in footwear designed to handle outdoor life, to swing arms and legs free of the restrictions of girdle and bustle and petticoat and corset and button-shoes.

And Jane thought dangerous thoughts, wondering to herself whyever such freedom shouldn’t be given to women as well as to men. And she thought of the laws of the land, and who made the laws, and who was permitted to vote for those who made those laws.

So Shirley only smiled without surprise the day she came down to the police station to bail out Jane, sitting demurely on a prison cell bench in her white and green and violet dress and hat, still defiantly wearing her VOTES FOR WOMEN sash. “I broke the Prime Minister’s window,” Jane said proudly.  



End file.
